


even when the night changes

by cry4me



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Boys In Love, Fluff, LANCE IS SO GONE FOR KEITH, M/M, POV Lance (Voltron), Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Soulmates, broganes, but arent we all, dont judge lmao, enjoy my fluffy trash, every time i reread this i realize how bad my writing was oh god, i love them, klance, low key angst, this is my first published klance fic im nervous lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 09:28:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19292950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cry4me/pseuds/cry4me
Summary: Keith always managed to steal his breath away and Lance feared that one day his lungs won’t catch up and he’ll suffocate. It will be a sweet death though. He wouldn’t mind it.





	even when the night changes

After Lance realized he was in love with Keith Kogane, everything went to shit. And at the same time it didn’t. He wasn’t sure how exactly the ‘I love him’ thought came into his mind, and when, but Lance always secretly knew on the back of his head that it was always there. And that scared him a lot if he had to admit. It’s not like he didn’t want to love Keith. It was more of a ‘He is SO out of my league’ type of thing.

For God’s sake, Keith was the Black paladin of Voltron, one of the best swordsmen Lance has seen, and even though he was a hothead, his heart was on the right place and that was the most important part. Lance misses Shiro a lot. He was his idol back in the Garrison, his role model, everything Lance wanted to be in the future. But… he couldn’t help how he felt as Keith’s right hand. He actually felt resourceful, he wasn’t a burden.

He will always remember the moment, when they went to the planet Zamaria and the king there offended Shiro for being an useless Black paladin, for letting himself die…no…disappear so easily in the hands of Zarkon. He remembered the way the whole room went to a complete silence, the way his team caught their breath. In the way as fast as a lightning Keith drew out his blade and stabbed the table, painfully close to the kings’ fingers and snarled.

To be honest, the whole ‘show-up-my-galra-genes-when-im-mad’ thing wasn’t a surprise anymore and Lance hardly cared. Of course the same thing couldn’t be said for the Zamarians. The King gulped slowly and looked around for help.

“Talk about my brother like that in my presence again and next time I’ll make sure this blade,” he demonstratively took the blade back as fast as he placed it, “won’t miss.” No one dared to do something. No one, except for Lance. He drew his chair back, stood up up and walked over to Keith. He saw the way the guards put their hands on their blasters and swords, fear in their eyes for the Red paladin of Voltron. He felt flattered really, but mad at the same time. Keith would never hurt him, no matter what.

Lance noticed how the King was shaking, looking back and forth at him and Keith. Lance let the pity take over and furrowed his brows. He probably didn’t mean to offend them personally, he barely knew them anyway.

But when he placed himself in front of Keith’s gaze and saw his eyes, his big, dark beautiful eyes, filled with unshed tears, Lance suddenly had the urge to turn around and punch the King in the face. Keith looked at him and closed his eyes. One tear fell on his right cheek.

This was Keith’s final straw. This was when Keith drew the line, after so many diplomatic meetings and questions about the ‘missing’, the ‘dead’ Black paladin. This was when the missing piece of his heart finally bled through aching and crying for the brother he lost not once, but twice.

Lance carefully placed his hands on Keiths’ shoulders, turned his body around and pushed him towards the exit. Keith immediately took the hint and went at the direction where the balconies were. Lance turned around and settled his eyes back on the pathetic excuse of a King and whispered quietly so Keith won’t hear him.

“You make Keith upset again or dare to talk like this to any fellow member of my team, I will make sure planet Zamaria isn’t under the protection of Voltron anymore. Understand?”

The King nodded so quickly, Lance thought his head would fall from his shoulders.

After this, the Red paladin made his way towards the balconies, towards Keith.

He found him sitting down, knees pressed firmly to his chest, arms hugging them tightly. He also let his hair down from the little ponytail he had on just a seconds ago. (Lance nearly died from a heart attack when he saw Keith with his hair up, but that’s another story.) He had his head up a little high, letting the breeze mess with his hair. The moonlight was just doing wonders to his face, making him look like a sculpture made in Ancient Greece, rather than a real person. His lips were lightly chapped from the wind, but looking so soft and kissable at the same time. Even his scar on his eyebrow, that continued just a little too much down, was supposed to make him just a little bit unattractive, was looking more beautiful than ever.

Keith always managed to steal his breath away and Lance feared that one day his lungs won’t catch up and he’ll suffocate. It will be a sweet death though. He wouldn’t mind it.

Eventually Lance had to shake himself from these thoughts and remember that he wasn’t here to stare at Keith. He looked around just for a second when his eyes caught the beautiful flowers that were so nicely wrapped around the balcony and continued down the wall. They were big and white and he wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but he swore he saw one of them sparkling as if someone spilled glitter on it. It looked a lot like a magnolia, so Lance went and gently picked it up. Surely the king wouldn’t mind after that fiasco he pulled. He brought his nose towards and smelled it. It smelt like…like burned wood? And freshly, cleaned laundry. And a lot of like the alien deodorant Keith was using? Strange.

With a flower in hand, Lance went and sat down next to Keith. He looked at him once again and noticed that Keith opened his eyes and was looking at the sky. He didn’t look happy or relaxed, but at least he was calm and there wasn’t anger or misery so Lance quietly sighed in relief. They were sitting there in a comfortable silence for what it felt like hours when Keith whispered.

“Did you know that despite their enormous size, hippos are great swimmers and can hold their breath for up to five minutes underwater?” He drew a long breath and continued. “When completely submerged, their ears and nostrils fold shut to keep water out.”

For just a second Lance was kind of…shocked. Just moments ago he was about to aggressively chop off the fingers of some old alien king like nothing and now he was talking about…hippos? Really? The confusion must have shown on his face, because Keith chuckled lightly and quietly. Lance turned his head, but sadly the half-galra boy was already looking away from him. He put his cheek on his knee and smiled.

_‘Oh god I love you I love you I love you…’_

“They were…they still are actually my favorite animal. I used to have this purple plush hippo toy as a kid. I refused to go anywhere without it. On my fifth birthday dad gave me this super old National Geographic magazine and they were fun facts about every animal in alphabetic order. I used to memorize only the hippo ones though.” He furrowed his brows in concentration. “It sucks because I knew much more back then and now it’s all…a blur I guess?”

Lance closed his eyes and hummed. He really didn’t know what to say honestly. He expected another topic for a conversation. Another beat of silence. Just when he thought Keith was going to be quiet again for the next minutes or hour-

“What about you?”

Surprisingly Lance felt a bolt of anger. Were they seriously going to ignore the elephant in the room (the balcony?) so they could talk about their, what, favorite animals? Since Shiro disappeared, his name was rarely said as if he was some kind of Voldemort or something. As if someone will die or a curse will lie upon all of them if they say his name. Lance was just…mad. They were all hurting, but Voltron was bigger than all of them. They all knew this, when they became paladins. They couldn’t just stay there and mope, afraid of saying Shiro’s name. It had to be the opposite. They had to talk about him. They had to mention him, they had to pass over his legacy, make him proud. Whether he was physically alive or not, that was another question. But as long as they all remembered him and talked with love about him, Shiro wouldn’t die.

No. Lance wouldn’t let that happen even for a second.

But…the way Keith asked him. ‘What about you?’ Such a simple question. Keith just had that tone in his voice that was so genuine. Keith genuinely wanted to know Lance’s favorite animal.

And Lance couldn’t let himself take it all out on Keith.

“It’s…” He took a moment and cleared his throat. Oh god his voice sounded so raspy and awful. “My favorite animal is the shark. Or the penguin. I can’t ever choose.”

Keith let out a small ‘mmm’. Lance took that as a sign to continue, so he did.

“Dolphins are pretty adorable too. When I was a kid, there was this huge aquarium in the centre of the city. I used to go there with my abuela all the time. The sea animals were just…amazing. I even had to choose between a pilot and a sea biologist. I couldn’t decide for a long time, but it’s obvious what I loved more.” He smiled sadly. “Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if I chose the other option.”

“Your life would have been a lot different, that’s for sure. You wouldn’t have met Hunk, Shiro, Pidge, Allura, Coran and Blue and Red.”

As if the words ‘You wouldn’t have met me’ lingered in the air. But those were just Lances’ hopeless illusions.

“Mhm…”

“What are you holding?”

Lance opened his eyes and looked down. He got caught up in this whole conversation, he forgot about the magnolia wannabe flower he was holding. He fidgeted with it and held it up higher so Keith could see. He leaned just too much forward in Lance’s space and Lance wanted to scream, because of how his heart fluttered in his chest with that simple movement.

God he was so pathetically in love, it was gross.

He looked over at Keith and saw how his eyes lit up with recognition and just a little smile tugged his lips. Then his gaze settled on him and Lance couldn’t breathe again.

“You seriously weren’t listening through the tour? Shame the story was totally screaming ‘Lance McClain’.”

“Hey, what is that supposed to mean!?” Lance let out an offended yelp.

“It means that you are a hopeless romantic and the story behind this flower was something you would have gushed over to be honest. I should’ve known something was up since you didn’t say anything.”

Lance had the urge to scream again. Oh my, did Keith seriously knew him so well? He just had this urge to wrap him in a bone crushing hug and kiss his face until he passes off.

“Mind to tell me then?”

Keith shrugged and backed away, back on the wall again.

“As I said, it was just a romantic story. Apparently the princess of some queen wanted to marry this peasant girl. They loved each other very much blah blah some ‘Romeo and Juliet’ bullshit all over again-“

“Keith.” Lance warned, but felt a little laugh escaping his mouth.

“Whatever. Yeah so, when her mother found out, she went to a witch and asked her to do something to the peasant, but without killing her because she knew that her death would kill her own daughter as well. They were soulmates or some shit, I don’t really remember-“

An ugly snort came out of Lance and after he saw Keith’s confused face, he started laughing loudly. “Oh my god Keith you absolutely fucking suck at telling stories I can literally imagine some nice alien telling the story in a beautiful, magical way and you there with that pout of yours and arms crossed-” Lance just couldn’t breathe, the mental image too much for him. He wanted to kick himself for not paying attention when the said zamarian came to show them around.

“Lance shut up, I’m trying to remember!”

The Cuban wiped his eyes in a dramatic way, still laughing. The joke wasn’t even that funny, but god, there was seriously something wrong with him.

“Yeah, yeah sorry go on. He went to the witch and what did she do?”

“She turned the peasant girl into a flower and said that only when her soulmate smells her, she’s gonna turn back into her previous form. But she did something else, she prepared a love potion made into a perfume for the fiancé of the princess. Meaning that when she smells the actual person she was promised to, she was going to forget about the peasant or something like that. Thankfully, the maid that raised her heard about this and told the princess. The princess went to another witch and wanted her to take her sense of smell so she couldn’t forget about her one true love-“

“Oh no, no, nah uh, nada, I don’t like where this is going-“

“So princess meets her fiancé, but when nothing happens her mother gets super mad or whatever. She already planned to run away so when she visits the peasant and sees only a flower, you can imagine her reaction. She never knew that this was her one true love, but she liked the flower so much so she masked and lived her life as a peasant growing this flower…a zamarist.”

“Oh god this was so heartbre- wait a minute…OH! Is that why the planet is named Zamaria?”

A nod from Keith. “The zamarians think that’s how the peasant girl was called. And that the princess was some sort of goddess and created the planet and the flower was the first thing that bloomed.”

“Why didn’t you just tell her name in the beginning?”

“What was going to be the point of the surprise at the end though?” A smirk on his lips.

“So that,” he picks up the flower again “is something like a soulmate flower?”

Keith nods once more. “Zamarians think that when you smell it, you smell the scent of your soulmate or the person you’re in love with. I don’t really remember, you gotta ask the tour guide she was more specific about this romantic bullshit.”

Romantic bullshit, huh?

“Ah ah ah Keith you can’t fool me here. If you thought all of this was romantic bullshit you wouldn’t have listened.”

Keiths’ cheeks flushed and Lance just wanted to stretch his hands and squish them.

“That’s not the-..I-I- was just…You know what-…fuck you.” Keith stutters.

Lance smiles slyly and tilts his head.

“You may have this whole broody-bad-boy type of thing going on, but we both know you’re just a huge softie underneath.”

Keith groaned loudly and Lance couldn’t help but laugh. He just loved when he laughed with Keith. He loved Keith’s smile and ugh-

He just loved Keith.

Keith suddenly got up and offered Lance an arm. Lance took it and hated how he didn’t  hate the way his heart did a little happy flip in his chest.

The dark haired boy then walked towards the handrail, leaned his elbows on it and sighed. He looked up to the moon and the stars again, but this time there was a little happy smile.

_‘I love you, I love you, I love you…’_

“We should head back, I don’t want to worry Allura.”

Lance, still staring at Keith, hummed in agreement.

“But before we do-“

All of a sudden, Keith turned at him, gently took the zamarist from Lances’ hands. Then he proceeded to take some of the hair above his ear back, just so he can put the flower there. Lance felt how his cheeks are getting hotter every time Keith accidently touched his face. Keith apparently happy with result dropped his hands and crossed them over his chest.

“See? Now you look like a Zamarian.” He smiled and his expression was so soft, so open and Keith’s face suddenly got closer and _holy shit he was gonna kiss him he was gonna kiss him and Lance would faint and die from embarrassment-_

Soft lips came in touch with his cheek and Lance melted. Keith’s breath was hot in his ear and Lance wasn’t sure how he was still alive. He was afraid Keith would hear his heart that was beating too loud in his chest.

“Thank you.” Keith’s voice came quieter than a whisper. “Thank you for being here with me, thank you for being so understanding and kind and just-“ suddenly strong wrapped around his neck and it takes some good five seconds before Lance realized he hasn’t hugged back so he lifted his own hands squeezed Keith as hard as he could.

“Keith it’s okay-“

“No. You don’t-…Lance you don’t understand how much you mean to me. How much you mean to Voltron. You’re the glue of this whole team. You once said Allura is the heart. That’s not true, Lance, you’re the heart. You care for every single one of us and you shine so bright and it’s so blinding and I know-…” Keith tightened his arms around him, so Lance did the same. “I know I can always count on you, because you are my stability. You ground me every single time. I don’t know what would happen to Voltron,” A pause. “What would happen to me, if you weren’t here, so just…thank you.”

He squeezed Lance quickly one more time, pulled away and then walked back to the dining hall.

While Lance just stood there, frozen in place, hands hanging up in the air.

 

 * : ･ﾟ ✧ * : ･ﾟ ✧

 

It’s only late at night when Lance realizes that the zumarist smells like Keith. He looks at the flower on his nightstand, next to his bed. He takes it gently and inhales as deeply as he can. Lance is pretty sure that this night he went to sleep with a soft smile on his face and the smell of burnt wood, fresh laundry and Keith filling his senses.

**Author's Note:**

> so yuh., my firts klance fic that i uploaded. im not really the happiest because originally this was gonna be a love bug fic w allura getting bitten and falling in love with keith and lance bein a jelly boi, but yeahh i eventually brushed off the idea and left it only like this. i just,, wanted,, to put smth there for the klance fandom at least once before i die, because this ship is so precious to me and i lov these boys too much. i really dont expect any hits, kudos but eh its all welcomed ! love u all who decided to check this trashy baby xoxo <3


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